Aside from a few snickers I found the highly-anticipated Spook Country barely worth a snore and a half. The book sort of follows up where PatRec left off, if only because of Bigend …but even if it didn’t – and WG’s not doing a trilogy, Spook Country still falls flat like most middle books (in a trilogy). Suggest you avoid this and wait for the movie. At least they’ll be able to amuse you with special effects, CGI and whatever passes for awesome these days.